Luckmann

Join Date 04/2006

+132

The Elves

Spawned from original discussion here.

Me, Varenius Silveric the Radiant of the Forest:
I'm torn (as usual). I can see the addition of some great, really well-made races. This again brings me back to Dominions 3, where someone made two excellent mods - one adding pirate-like dwarves and the other adding an elven nation. But on the other hand, for every well-made, well-thought-out, fits-into-the-setting-like-a-glove, there's a goddamn hundred worthless, run-of-the-mill, let's-force-this-shit-in-there-like-a-monkey-through-a-keyhole "yay I want elfeses!"-mods.

I can see the addition of an entire elven subrace. High Elves (WoWesque), Wood Elves (LotResque), Dark Elves (Forgotten Realms Drowesque), Dark Elves (Eberron Drowesque), Fel Elves/Blood Elves/Fey'ri (A mix of all at once). Add some nice interaction between all of them, and we have an entire new race. Of course, right now I'm just dreaming, but I can dream dammit!

And yes, I only now realized how incredibly off-topic this was!

The Landisaurus, horror of the ancient forests that sleeps:
I'm amused how you choose WoW as your model High elves, especially since Warcraft elves are kinda insane (at least since the sunwell was lost. That is also according to the lore of the game, I'm not sure if its actually played up at all after frozen throne in the not-books). When I think "High elves" I first think of warhammer (the people warcraft directly immitates, warcraft 2 tried to make sure they were different, but warcraft 3 turned right back around and headed straight back to direct-copy).

I always felt that the line between high elves and wood elves were made vague in LoTR. Like, I imagine wood elves having tree-based villages and such. The woodelves in LoTR had a castle, and for the most part (to me anyway) didn't seem much more 'in-tune with the wood' than the high elves were.

No, no, no. I said WoWesque. I really like(d) the WoW High Elves and the Blood Elves before all the faggotry that is now World of Warcraft. Warcraft was, for a long time, one of my absolute favourite settings, based almost solely around Warcraft and Warcraft II (the retcon-parade only started with WC3 and escallated from there on, the merry-go-'round haven't stopped yet).

Did you know that Blizzard originally wanted to make a Warhammer game, but ended up doing Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, instead? That's some interesting tidbit from the mists of time. I can't even find a semi-official source for it in this day and age, but I remember it from years upon years back.

Anyway, I was thinking of a distinctly elven subspecies (Just like the Fallen are originally human, so are the elves). They'd have all the basic elven attributes; Long life, lack of facial and body hair, pointed ears and a bad attitude. Their creational myth is up for grabs, or I could come up with something in a dedicated thread or another (edit: which would be this one). Now we're all off-topic and no-one seems to care, anyway. *cough* (edit: Not actually in this thread, but in the old one)

Hochalfar (High Elves) - Q'Darquin - Republic of Q'Darquin

Ljosalfar (Wood Elves) - El'Darquin - Theocracy of Sol'Arete

Feyalfar (Blood Elves) - Ri'Darquei - Empire of the Sun

Svartalfar (Dark Elves) - Sin'Darquin - Svartalfar Hegemony

Dunkelalfar (Feral Elves) - Son'Darque - Kratocracy of Darq

I'll do a writeup on each at a later date. I mostly wanted to write this down before I forgot.

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Their creational myth is up for grabs, or I could come up with something in a dedicated thread or another (edit: which would be this one). Now we're all off-topic and no-one seems to care, anyway. *cough* (edit: Not actually in this thread, but in the old one)

What?

Ljosalfar (Wood Elves) - El'Darquin - Theocracy of Sol'Arete

Svartalfar (Dark Elves) - Sin'Darquin - Svartalfar Hegemony

Oo oo I know those two! Ljosalfar are 'light elves'/alfar in norse mythology (not wood elves! ) and Svartalfar are dark elves in it. Although quite honestly I don't really think Svartalfar really belong with the rest. They are really more dwarf-like than elf-like (and in fact, most scholars agree that Svartalfar was just another name for norse dwarves - which incidentally were not construed to be small until the medieval ages). They are described as being ugly and misshapen...

Yes, it does bother me when people take actual, specifc mythological races and twist them to suit their own uses Make a new name for it if you don't want the baggage that comes with the original!

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

Make a new name for it if you don't want the baggage that comes with the original!

Seconded

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I know where the words come from, and the norse mythology elves (alfar) has really -nothing- to do with what we consider 'elves' today (in a fantasy context). I needed names, and those names fits like a glove, although they're actually taken straight from Fall from Heaven, rather than actual mythology - although even with the names ripped straight out of FfH2, they're very different.

The names stay, because they're simply too fitting.
To clarify for those possibly confused, it's sorted "<setting name> (<general definition>) - <elven name> - <nation>".

No matter what name I go with, it's going to have a baggage dependant on what the individual puts into the wording. For example, Feyalfar could be missunderstood as some kind of reference to Fey folk (fairies), but in context, there's nothing like that. You have to take things for what they are, independant of your (or anyone elses) preexisting expectations (and amongst those, I don't think -anyone- think that they're going to have anything to do with the actual Svartalfar/Ljosalfar mythological counterparts, not even you).

Here, they're all alfar!

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Bah, me no likey For one, Ljosalfar literally translates to Light Elves (which I suppose you know) so why call them wood elves? How is that fitting?

And even if you took Svartalfar from FfH2, they obviously took it from the mythology (and because you're well aware of that, you are taking it from the mythology, too ). And it really isn't true that any name will cary baggage with it. Obviously if it's been used in any significant and well-known way it will have some baggage, but not if make your own name. Like Tolkien. Noldor, Vanyar, Teleri, Avari, none of those had any connotation with anything anywhere, because he invented them. He them took some pre-existing concepts and notions and applied it to them, but that's different.

I guess I'll give up on Svartalfar, considering it literally means Black Elves, even if in the actual mythology they are not very elf-like. And also, the Ljosalfar actually aren't that far off from more modern fantasy elves. They were human-like, radiant, and beautiful to perfection, as well as being more or less friendly to people.

So I'll concede on Svartalfar, but I still think you should either rename the Ljosalfar or classify them as Light Elves, considering it's what the word means

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@Luck - OK here is some serious karma action for you, regarding WoW's history, take a gander at this. It will fill you in on all the little details.

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Quoting pigeonpigeon,

reply 4

Bah, me no likey For one, Ljosalfar literally translates to Light Elves (which I suppose you know) so why call them wood elves? How is that fitting?

And even if you took Svartalfar from FfH2, they obviously took it from the mythology (and because you're well aware of that, you are taking it from the mythology, too ). And it really isn't true that any name will cary baggage with it. Obviously if it's been used in any significant and well-known way it will have some baggage, but not if make your own name. Like Tolkien. Noldor, Vanyar, Teleri, Avari, none of those had any connotation with anything anywhere, because he invented them. He them took some pre-existing concepts and notions and applied it to them, but that's different.

I guess I'll give up on Svartalfar, considering it literally means Black Elves, even if in the actual mythology they are not very elf-like. And also, the Ljosalfar actually aren't that far off from more modern fantasy elves. They were human-like, radiant, and beautiful to perfection, as well as being more or less friendly to people.

So I'll concede on Svartalfar, but I still think you should either rename the Ljosalfar or classify them as Light Elves, considering it's what the word means

For the purpose of the setting, they are 'Light Elves'. Wood Elves is just a general definition for the purpose of instant comparison. Think of it like this.

Ljosalfar is their 'proper' name. Like Hobbits. Hobbits are hobbits. But hobbits are ALSO Halflings. In this case, the proper name would be 'Ljosalfar', but one with only tentative knowledge of the elves, unaware of the real differences between the elves (which is few) can (or may) refer to them as 'wood' elves, since they're the typical forest-dwelling, tree-hugging, jump-between-forest-tops elf. I could call them Solkorkirks instead, but then I might just aswell stick to the purely elven names (in this case, El'Darquin, which translates more into 'Green Radiance'-Of-the-People than anything else).

Quoting Spartan,

reply 5

@Luck - OK here is some serious karma action for you, regarding WoW's history, take a gander at this. It will fill you in on all the little details.

While I *think* I know most everything about Warcraft, thanks a lot for that link. Watched the first part of.. well.. part 1, and it looks interesting. Thanks.

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I agree with warcraft (pre WoW) being an awesome setting. One of the designers said that in warcraft 2 they had made an effort to make the elves and dwarves feel a little different from the generic wood-elf and dwarf conuterparts found in other fantasy games. That is why they made dwarves a bit savage, presenting it by riding shirtless on griffins. I'm not really sure what was different about the elves, but I think the example given made them sound more like wood elves, I mean exactly what they used as dark elves in warcraft 3. I really blame warcraft 3 for starting the band trend that lead to WoW, even though warcaft 3 was the hight of the story. (magic the gathering has the same problem. the best sets, tempest and the urza's, are what started pointing the game in a direction where it found its pit to suck-dom) Warcaft 3 removed a lot of what made the warcraft setting unique, though it added a bunch of other aspects that helped. But again, a discussion for a different time. (I can go on for hours about the warcraft story, as I used to love it so)

I don't know about making elves fallen. I kinda imagined that elves and dwarves would be event and mercenary races, but not actually playable. You could occationally get elven spearmen for higher. Maybe find a place where you can recruit them even, but not an entire race. Perhaps like the faries and leprechauns in HoMM, you see them on the field, you go there and interact with them to learn a new skill or gain a bonus, but again, not a playable race. HoMM 2 I know had a few units that were not part of any base town/faction, but I can't think of them right now. (elementals for sure... ghosts maybe? You can get those in HoMM 3+, but I don't think you can in the 1st or 2nd through any towns, even though you can fight them and recruit them outside of towns)

@spartan: Yeah, I don't think knowing about warcraft is really that special. Maybe nobody read manuals other than me (and I guess luckmann)... but thanks for the videos.

added note: I have so far watched a bit of it, and I notice that they have already skimmed right over some of the now messed up by WoW back story and main plot points of warcraft 1, 2 and 3. Gametrailers retrospectives always do there best at smoothing over plot holes, better than the game creators in some cases. So in this case they don't touch it.

It focuses a lot of gameplay though, which I think is pretty good. That part of the warcraft series never really faultered, so I guess that is fair enough. The narritive designer in my may scream in agony as it think of what has become of the once rich universe. The mechanics designer of me still recognizes everything in the warcraft series as staples that have set a standard for the entire game industry, including WoW which has become the standard to beat for every AAA MMO creator out there.

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